Sessions – Nine Months

Chapter 35: Stride

Cate had returned from her excursion to the furniture store with his mother much earlier than House had expected. He had spent the better part of the day taking care of the necessary evils of laundry and the bills and was resting on the couch when she walked through the door with a stack of receipts in her hand. He could only imagine the small fortune she had spent on their wee little one and the thing wasn't even born yet. Never mind the other pieces of furniture they needed to buy to fill this extra large house he insisted they needed.

The closing was just a month away and they had also yet to start the excavation process of the apartment. They decided there was no better time like the present to organize of the closet of doom. Actually Cate had decided; he was sort of just along for the ride.

The night of the big 'drug bust', they didn't have the time or the inclination to actually sort through the contents and 'keep', 'sell', or 'toss' the crap he'd stored in the bowels of that closet over the past ten years because she had so coquettishly bribed him with sex. Today was a different story. She had blackmailed him with good information about his mother and her mysterious behavior of late in order to get him to agree to a cleaning spree, and damned if he wasn't curious enough to go for it. They were in the process of making piles of coats and shoes to donate to the local PBA clothing drive.

"So are you going to tell me what my mother said or do I have to wait until we finish here?"

From her little camping spot on the floor, Cate held up a pair of running shoes he'd worn back when Clinton was President and he shook his head at them. "Well," she started, "the reason I'm back so early is because your mother has a date tonight."

"What?" he stared at her clutching a golf club in his hands. "A date?"

"Yep, a date," she repeated dumping the shoes into the pile to her right.

"With who?" He inquired dropping the head of the club to the floor. He putted an imaginary ball down the hallway swinging it gently in the confined space. Shaking his head he sighed; he missed golfing a lot.

"Well, she distinctly told me to tell you to keep your nose out of her business," she relayed saucily as she held up another pair of sneakers.

Distracted, he waved those into the pile of discards as well and peered at her. "What the hell? That means it's someone she doesn't want me to know about?"

"You would think, right?" Cate agreed. "But then she drops this bomb…"

Resting the head of the driver onto the floor, he placed both of his hands on top of the end of the shaft, casually shifting his weight to the right as he waited for her to continue the rest of the story.

"She tells me she's seen your real father, on a couple of occasions."

"What?!" he exclaimed. If he wasn't holding onto the golf club, he would have fallen over in shock. "She's seen him! A couple of times! Are you fucking kidding me?"

"I kid you not," she said. "And when I asked her who she was seeing tonight, she laughed at me."

House stalked around the tiny space between the piles of coat and shoes and her legs akimbo on the floor in between. "She's seeing my father, for dinner, tonight?!"

"I would assume so," Cate surmised with a helpless little shrug and a laugh on her lips.

House stopped mid-pace to stare at her. "What do you think is so funny about this?"

"Because I knew you'd react like this," she stated. "You're beside yourself because your mother hid something from you again. And you can't stand it."

"You're damn right," he objected. "The human polygraph who wouldn't let me get away with anything the minute I turned thirteen, hides the biggest secret of them all and now she's wining and dining with the guy who knocked her up while she was a married woman, not that my bastard father didn't deserve it but, come on!"

Sheepishly, Cate frowned at him. "Oh yeah, she also had a little melt down in the Crate and Barrel when I got a tiny bit carried away and might have shed some light on…" she hedged a bit and grimaced before finishing, "… the abuse you went through as a child."

House reeled back and stared at her. "What? You told her that? What the fuck Cate?"

Trapped like a wounded seal by her belly and shifted center of gravity, Cate went to get up but sat back down in her position on the floor with a disgruntled huff. "I had no choice," she looked up at him awkwardly. "She called you and your father the same and I had to defend you. It just came out."

He rolled his eyes at her and then looked at her for a second. "What did she say? How much did you tell her?"

"A lot. She said that she was an awful mother because she didn't know, because she believed him," she shrugged.

"He lied to her. I lied to her because she didn't need to know," he said in a small voice.

"Greg, she had to have had some inkling. Denial and avoidance is what really kept her in the dark all these years," Cate told him. He knew this was probably true but he liked to believe that she was protected from it. Somehow it hurt less to believe that she didn't know what was happening to him, that she was incapable of stopping it.

Sexy Kitty emerged from her sleeping spot for the day and tiptoed around them right in the middle of their workspace. She rubbed her body against his shin, in and out of his legs and he could practically hear her purring. Cate held her hand out to pet the cat softly behind the ears. Kitty, quickly abandoned him for Cate, she positioned herself to be the most in the way she could possibly be and then curled up in between Cate's legs as if she were lying on the Queen's throne.

"Your mother's afraid that you blame her," Cate told him gently. Uncomfortable with the cat between her outstretched legs, Cate lifted the animal and crossed her legs to reposition.

"I don't blame her," he said opening up the large black trash bag for Cate to start filling with the donation clothing. "It wasn't her fault."

"I told her that," Cate said working around her fuzzy lap partner.

"Did she believe you?"

"I think so," she said picking up a pair of sneakers to toss in. One missed the bag and fell to the floor upside down. A lone Vicodin pill skittered to the floor with a click that echoed in House's ears like the call of the wild. Ohhhh, yes…

Sexy Kitty heard it too and she immediately hopped off of Cate's knees. Enticed by a new and exciting toy, the cat stuck out her paw and batted the capsule down the hallway. In a flash of fur and a tiny white streak, House's salvation skipped down the surface of the hardwood like a pearl on ice. It was the most glorious thing he'd seen in over a week.

House sped after the little cat determined to get to the pill first before she lost it under a piece of furniture.

"Greg!" Cate exclaimed, struggling to get up. "Greg! Stop!"

Within seconds, House caught up to the cat and shooed her out of the way. He picked up the pill from the floor and held it in the palm of his hand staring at it. He could all but taste its bitterness, vividly recalling the feeling of warmth and numbness as it would take its effect. He could hear its siren song calling him, begging him to put it in his mouth and swallow it.

"Greg don't," she warned, coming up to him out of breath.

In a daze, he looked at her and back at the pill and then back at her. With all of the drama unfolding around him, he wanted that familiar deadening so badly he could almost feel it in his bones. His eyes found hers as if he was seeking her approval but knew he wasn't going to get it. What he got confused him. She wasn't angry or concerned. She was smiling with tears in her eyes. He blinked in uncertainty. "What?"

"You walked down the hallway," she said in wonder.

He stared back at her perplexed. What the hell was she talking about? He had a Vicodin pill in his hand and he wanted to chew on it to taste its bitter remembrance.

"You walked down the hallway," she repeated more vehemently in joy.

"I what?" She was the one who was crazy, not him.

"You walked," she said placing her hand on his arm, staying his pursuit and took the Vicodin from his palm. He almost grabbed her wrist to take it back but her words stopped him. "Sweetheart, you didn't just limp down the hallway, you walked!"

He let out a breath beginning to realize what she was saying. Really beginning to notice for the first time, since the Ketamine after being shot, he wasn't in pain. He reeled back stunned.

"You see?" she said happily launching herself into his arms and kissing him with pure happiness. "Your pain is gone."

House took in a deep and steady breath. His hands circled around the side of their baby to pull her to him in a secure, loving embrace. He had been feeling no pain for the last few days but he had been too afraid to acknowledge it because he had been through the disappointment of its eventual return before. With each dosage, he had been gradually feeling less and less of the bone-crushing ache that had consumed him for the last nine years. He was able to move his leg more fully, stretch it further and put weight on it without it sending a firestorm of agony through him. He had wanted to tell her so many times but he didn't want to get her hopes up. He didn't want to get his own hopes up because he knew the let down was much worse. So he kept quiet to see just how much it was really improving. Apparently it was enough to let him walk unencumbered, so much so that he hadn't even realized it.

House let go of her and placed his weight gingerly on his leg at first and then gradually he increased the pressure more and more until he was able to lift his left foot off the floor and balance solely on his right foot. His knee gave out after a few seconds from lack of use, unable to handle that kind of strain, but she was right. His leg felt good. No pain when he stood, no pain when he walked. He took a few more steps down the hallway turned and walked back to her without his cane. He was mobile, if not a little awkward, and out of pain. For real.

"It worked," he said in disbelief.

Cate smiled at him and came to hug him again. "It worked."

"Flush that pill," he told her, "I don't want it."

Stepping out of his arms, she went into the bathroom and immediately flushed the pill down the toilet. He heard the water gurgle out of the commode feeling like his past was finally leaving him open to new, fresh possibilities. It was scary and exhilarating at the same time and he wasn't really sure what to do in that moment. Lacing his hands behind his head, he stared back at her in giddy wonderment.

Cate came back to him and kissed him squarely on the lips. "I love you."

He dropped his arms to tug her to him and kissed her back, pouring his heart and soul into every lingering second his lips were on hers. Pulling back, he looked deep into her eyes. This woman that he loved more than his drugs, his music, his career or his life itself, she was everything to him. Her strength, her conviction made him a better man. She had become his salvation and his reason for waking up everyday. She was his life. "Thank you for believing."

She beamed at him with her rich chocolate eyes that saw him as the most wonderful man in the world. He was more in love with her in that moment than ever before. For the first time in his life, House felt like he could handle anything.